The drug
‘Thalidomide’ was mainly prescribed to pregnant women for morning
sickness in the late 50s and early 60s. Instead, the drug caused
severe deformities in babies with missing limbs.

How many babies
were born worldwide?

They is today an
estimated 12,000 thalidomide survivors worldwide and 458 in the UK,
however a further 7,500 died within the first couple.

Could thalidomide
happen again?

Thalidomide
babies are still being born worldwide today especially in the third
world. In Brazil, approximately eight hundred babies have been born
since 1985.

Is Thalidomide UK part of the
Thalidomide Trust or Society?

NO - Thalidomide UK is an advisory, monitoring and a
campaign group. We are the only thalidomide group in the
UK that is managed by the survivors of the drug thalidomide. We were
founded in October 1993 and are the newest group. Thalidomide UK was
involved with all the payout that has been made since 1993.

Thalidomide Trust - The aim of the Trust
is toprovide relief and assistance for those people born, in the United
Kingdom, damaged because of their mothers
having taken the drug Thalidomide (as manufactured by Distillers
Biochemicals Limited) during their pregnancy.

The Thalidomide Society - The Thalidomide Society founded
in the United Kingdom
in 1962 by parents of thalidomide-impaired children in order to help
and support the affected families and to campaign for public support
and recognition of what had happened. The Society currently supports
thalidomide and similarlyimpaired
people by providing advice and information.

Can thalidomide
can past on through generations?

Thalidomide
UK backs more research on whether thalidomide can be
past on through generations. It is important to remember that the
thalidomide children of the sixties have grown-up and many have
become parents themselves. They is approximately four hundred
children born to thalidomide parent(s) with only ten ever been
reported with birth defects. Some of these cases were mild were
others were more severe.

There is no
medical evidence whatsoever on whether thalidomide can past on
through generations.

In the British
Sunday Mirror of July 3 1994, ('Thalidomide dad's tragedy'), it was
reported that the babies of six young men who were born deformed
because of thalidomide have also been born with malformed limbs. Two
of the babies have almost identical deformities to their fathers.
Obstetrician Dr William McBride, whom first warned against
thalidomide in 1961, has called on doctors to study children of
victims and report back to determine the scale of the tragedy. He
says there are second generation victims in Germany,
Japan and Bolivia as well as Britain.

Despite all the clinical evidence to the contrary, British
health authorities such as the Medical Research Council maintain
that the vast bulk of evidence from laboratory and animal tests is
against thalidomide having any genetic effects. In fact, thalidomide
apologists still adhere to the defence that the thalidomide tragedy
could not have been predicted, mainly because the drug had not been
tested specifically for birth defects before being marketed, as at
the time it was not required by law.

Some argue that
the thalidomide tragedy was not an example of an animal-tested drug
which proved disastrous for humans, but of the dishonesty and sharp
practices of the pharmaceutical industry. This view is based upon
the fact that the animal tests carried out by the inventor of the
drug, the West German pharmaceutical company Chemie Grünenthal, were
very superficial and incomplete, their clinical trials were hastily
done and questionable, and that prior to the introduction of
thalidomide Grünenthal did not carry out animal tests specifically
to demonstrate teratogenic (malformation causing) effects.
However, it is evident that the human birth deformities caused
by thalidomide was the result of misleading results from animal
experimentation as well as the dishonesty of drug companies. The
original animal tests by Chemie Grünenthal did not show indications
of side-effect, and furthermore, in several European countries,
including England and Sweden, the licensees of thalidomide carried
out their own animal tests, independently from the German firm, but
still arrived at the same results as Chemie Grünenthal.